The Rest of the Trip

The rest of our time in Seattle was a little more laid back.  We went to church on Sunday.  I had to drop Craig off at the ferry terminal freakishly early Monday morning so he could fly home (sniff, sniff).  Tracy arranged for three teenagers to watch all of our collective children (only five of the eleven kids are mine!) so all the grown-ups could go to our favorite Thai restaurant to celebrate my Dad's 70th birthday. 

The whole group (I was so sad that Craig missed it!)

Birthday Dad, with his two eldest, and Brian

And the rest of us at the other end of the table

My roommate Kathy (the Fabulous) came out to see me.  She brought Hayley, who will be roommates with Camille at BYU some day!

Camille got to play with Nicole

Ryder, Caleb, and Eliot

We spent quite a bit of time going through some of my Grandma's things.  I got a watch of hers, and her old wallet, and some books.  And it was fun looking at old photos!

An old photo of my Grandpa that my Grandma kept in her wallet

And the inscription on the back, which I love.  I wish I knew what the "Uh Huh" meant...?

An old family portrait-- I'm sitting on my mom's lap

Me in the center, age 4

With my cousin, Anne, probably around age 8?

Tuesday morning, I got up and announced that I absolutely HAD to eat breakfast at the Streamliner Diner.  Tracy very generously offered to watch the kids so Natalie and my Mom and I could all go.  It was the best breakfast EVER, and gave me a nice break from the kids!  Having uninterrupted conversation with other grown-ups is one of my favorite things ever.  (We did bring Nicole with us, but she didn't make a peep the entire time.  She is very different from Camille!)

It had rained all day Monday, so even though it was still cold and gloomy on Tuesday, the absence of rain made it an acceptable day to haul the kids to various parks.  That afternoon, Natalie and I took them all (except Kendra, who wasn't feeling well) to Fay Bainbridge first.  We'd just barely arrived when a bald eagle flew right over us!

Someone else had already built this great fort

I guess Nicole was all the sunshine we needed on this grey and blustery day!

Camille wanted me to pick her up

Bentley throwing rocks

And looking grumpy with a giant stick

So then Colton also needed a picture of himself holding a giant stick

Next we went to Bay Hay & Feed to look at their baby chicks (I resisted the urge to buy myself another shirt).  And then we headed over to Battle Point Park to play for a bit more.  Then Natalie stayed at the house with all the girls (Camille & Nicole, and Kendra who was still sick) while my parents took me, Tracy, and the boys out to dinner at Isla Bonita.  We got everyone in bed, and then I finally took my turn staying home while everyone else went out and got ice cream at Mora.  They brought me back a chocolate-peanut butter-oreo milkshake, so that was amazing.

And then I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to download the Kindle book for my Dad that I bought him for Christmas.  Two phone calls to Amazon customer service, and after buying the book three times, we finally had it.  Sheesh.  Am I that bad at technology, or does Amazon just not want my Dad reading about Hamilton???  (In my defense, I had no trouble getting the book I got for my Mom onto her Kindle.)

Wednesday was the day to fly out.  My parents had to leave on the 5:25 ferry, so I got up around 4:45 to see them off.  Then I spent the rest of the morning packing.  If you were reading this post closely, you would have noticed that Craig left on Monday, which meant I was the only grown up available to fly my kids home.  Craig had offered to take some of the older kids with him so I wouldn't have so many to deal with (and so they wouldn't miss so much school) but I figured I'd have better luck with Bentley and Kendra helping me than trying to manage Camille and Colton alone.  So I just kept all of them.

I did insist on Tracy coming to the airport with me-- I just didn't see how I could return the rental car and get our bags checked without one other grown up.  Tracy made the kids do exercises while I returned the car:

She got us all the way to security, and then watched in horror as something on my hands set off their sensors (my only guess is pretty convaluted: Camille had been climbing all over me on the ferry, and her shoes were still muddy from the park, and I'd been brushing mud off my pants.  Maybe the dirt had fertilizer in it?).  I was ushered into a tiny room with my three youngest, while another TSA worker was assigned to watch Bentley and Kendra, and then I was given the most thorough pat-down EVER.  We're talking, the woman told me to hold onto my pants so she didn't accidentally pull them down!  Yikes.

The TSA workers were all very nice about it, though-- I think they felt really bad putting me through that.  They helped carry all my stuff around as this went on.  Twenty minutes later, they finally let me go, I waved one last good-bye to Tracy (and flashed her a thumbs up, she was looking so worried) and we headed to our gate.

I broke one of my usual rules, and let the kids run around and be crazy at the airport.  I figured they were in for 8 hours of sitting, they needed any chance they could get to move around.  I'm sure they were annoying someone, but this time I just didn't care.  

This picture might be worth zooming in on so you can see Colton's expression, mid-stride

The airline moved some guy so we could all sit together.  He was very polite about it all, and they put him in an exit row, so that was some nice karma at work. 

Colton and Camille in my row

Bentley, Kendra, and Ryder behind us

Look, I'm here, too!

As we soon as we took off and got above the clouds, we could see Mt. Rainier, which had been hiding for most of our trip, so it was nice to get a good view!

I'm not gonna lie-- that first flight back to Charlotte was LONG.  Camille was better than she'd been for the trip out (it helped that we were flying during the day, not late at night).  But it still wasn't easy.  Especially since she figured out how to unbuckle herself and wanted to run all over.  The only thing that kept her happy was letting her look at pictures on my phone.  So we did that a lot.  For six hours.

When we got to Charlotte, the people waiting at the gate were all super nice, I guess because they know we're all going to the same small town.  They smiled indulgently as we recharged all our electronics and as Camille and Colton rolled all over the floor (gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!).  The lady at the gate offered to let me board first, but I assured her the last thing we needed was extra time sitting on a plane.  We boarded last, instead.

Small plane, only two seats across

I love Bentley and Colton's matching faces in these...

Camille was thrilled to be on another plane!

But a little food and a chance to look at Mommy's phone and she was happy again!

We landed after midnight, and Craig was there waiting for us.  I handed all the kids off to him and went back to get our luggage and carseats.  It felt good to spend a few minutes standing alone.

It felt even better to be home again.



P.S. The day after we got home, I took Kendra to the doctor (turned out she'd had walking pneumonia, poor thing!  but luckily antibiotics cleared it up in no time!).  The only appointment they had was in the afternoon, so I had to take all the kids.  Craig apologized to me that I had to do that, but I admitted, "After flying across the country, taking them to the doctor wasn't all that big of a deal!